A Grip on sports

Vince Grippi has an opinion about everything local, especially sports. Every Sunday we provide samples of his daily riffs. Read him daily at spokesman.com/sportslink.

Tuesday: We interrupt our day-by-day report on the Mariners’ futility for this SportsLink special report: The M’s won. And so did my golf team.

The former should come as the lesser of the surprises. After all, Hisashi Iwakuma was pitching and he’s been nearly unhittable recently. Iwakuma was ace-like again last night against the woeful Houston Astros.

Speaking of aces, Bud Nameck, the voice of Washington State basketball, missed a hole-in-one by about the length of Kate Upton’s little toe yesterday and I was there to witness it.

I was a witness to a lot of great golf shots as our four-man scramble team took home the prestigious Wet Dog Fur Open golf title at MeadowWood.

Sure, Christian Caple, my son Tyler, a copy editor for the Review sports department, and Bud carried the load, but I contributed. I drove the cart well. I gave the guys an occasional read on putts. I found a couple balls. And, oh yeah, I made sure we remembered to put out the long-drive and closest-to-the-pin signs.

Wednesday: The M’s made news when they called up last year’s first-round draft pick Mike Zunino.

Twitter exploded with two contrasting opinions: It was about time and it was too soon. Both are right.

When Jesus Sucre was injured, the M’s should have brought Zunino to the big leagues, told him not to worry about his at-bats and just get acclimated to his future home. He’s good enough defensively to give Kelly Shoppach a rest every third day and to not hurt the M’s chances of winning.

When Sucre is ready to play again, send Zunino back to the minors, stopping his service-time clock and giving him a memory he’ll want to work that much harder to regain. Yes, it’s probably too soon for the guy to be in the bigs for good, especially if you think he’s one of the cornerstones of future success. But it isn’t a bad thing to let him see the brass ring up close. 

Friday: Today is the beginning of one of the best aspects of summer in Spokane – Indians baseball. There is no excuse for not attending at least one game. It’s part of Americana, a piece of our culture.

There is very few things better than sitting in the stands on a warm summer night, a hot dog and drink in hand, the scorecard slowly filling up with your own scoring style.

If there’s a young child with you, all the better. Talk, teach, share the game. It’s fun.